I've got an 80 hour series two TiVo. We've several season passes, with the option: "Keep until I delete". I've watched everything I want, and am ready to delete, but my wife is severely behind on watching the programs. The TiVo is almost full now, and often when I try to schedule a new program it says it can't schedule because it's out of memory.

(Actually, it's projecting that by the time the show airs, it'll be out of memory because of the "To Do" list, but as the season's really over now, the only stuff in my To Do list are 3 season passes my wife has set up for our 3 year old son -- educational cartoons. These are also "keep until I delete", but my wife has agreed to let me archive these to VHS as soon as they record. Therefore, by the time my desired shows will air, the TiVo really won't be out of memory, but it doesn't know that. A solution is for me to wait until just before the air date, and then schedule a recording.)

My wife is unwilling to delete anything, because she wants to watch it all. (There's quite a prodigious amount recorded right now.) She also doesn't know when she'll have time to watch stuff. She won't change "Keep until I delete" to an expiration date, because she can't guarantee when she'll watch the stuff. Our TiVo is effectively no longer an 80 hour TiVo, but a 6-7 hour TiVo, and it's still shrinking. Soon I'll be TiVoless. [sounds of shocked awe]. She's jeopardizing my TiVo experience. Solutions?

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Get your wife her own TiVo. Seriously, that's what a lot of people have done. And if your schedules are that different, it probably makes the most sense.

Why not archive her stuff to VHS? Giving her the tapes doesn't cut it, since you have to essentially "watch it" to dub to VHS.

And I know you can't say it, but she's being really rude. If she's that far behind, she should tell you to go ahead and delete one of the series to make room. Besides, once it "fills up", it won't record anything else, so she'll miss some episodes.

The extra TiVo definitely does the job. I have 2 teenage kids and our viewing habits aren't always the same -- we often want to TiVo different programs at the same time. So now we have 3 TiVos and there's no more fighting.

Gosh, I'd hate to shell out for a second TiVO, but it would solve problems. I think what I may do is wait until her programs are about to delete... that may motivate her to start watching her stuff.

I'm a little confused by the order TiVo will use to decide what to delete. I hear that the first thing it deletes is the suggestions. Once that's done, I would think it would delete the ones that say "until space needed" before the ones that say "Keep until I delete". Once the former is gone, I assume it starts attacking the latter. But within those two categories, what order does it use? Note: In the season pass manager I moved shows up and down the list thinking it would affect the priority. Will it delete all episodes of one show before attacking another?

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I'm a little confused by the order TiVo will use to decide what to delete.

Mostly right, except I understand that when the entire TiVo is full of KUID shows, NOTHING will be deleted. It will just stop recording new stuff

I would also suggest you upgrade, but it would ...
1. Make her procrastinate more
2. Delay the inevitable - a full 200+ hour TiVo as opposed to an 80 hour!

I upgraded weeks ago from 80 to 80+120, and upped the recording quality (I had grown to loathe Basic Quality, and some shows don't look good enough at medium either!), so I was able to relax a week or so before it filled up again!

A second TiVo might be your better, if not cheaper option.

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A second Tivo is the best choice if you can afford it. Then you won't be bothered if she fills hers with KUID (Keep Until I Delete). An alternative is to save everything to VCR. That's less time consuming than actually watching the shows, since you don't have to be sitting at the tube while it saves it. As for what gets deleted when, suggestions go first, then the Keep Until Space Needed. Basically, if it has a yellow exclaimation point, it could go anytime. The solid yellow will expire in a day. Tivo never touches the KUID's. They're there until you (or your wife) deletes them.

Originally posted by allan A second Tivo is the best choice if you can afford it. Then you won't be bothered if she fills hers with KUID (Keep Until I Delete).

Until she fills up your TiVo with her KUID stuff. I can see the conversation now...
Wife: I can't record my show because my TiVo is full. Can you record it on your TiVo for me?
...

Honestly, with most shows being in re-runs at this point, you might just be able to ride this out for a couple weeks until the wife starts to catch up. Upgrading to a bigger hard drive will give you a bigger buffer for the next season of First Runs, so it might be worth doing it for the future.

Another option is make the kid's shows season pass "Save until space needed". That way you can set up the other shows to record, then change the kid's show's season pass back to KUID. I've never tried it, but I think that would work.

Originally posted by timckelley Gosh, I'd hate to shell out for a second TiVO, but it would solve problems.

Have you tried running the math by her? ie time to catch up = hours recorded / (average hours available to watch TV each night - average hours of "important" stuff TiVo records each night). Is the denominator even positive?

Originally posted by dgh Have you tried running the math by her? ie time to catch up = hours recorded / (average hours available to watch TV each night - average hours of "important" stuff TiVo records each night). Is the denominator even positive?

I take it you're not married, if you are offering such a suggestion seriously.

Originally posted by timckelley
I'm a little confused by the order TiVo will use to decide what to delete. I hear that the first thing it deletes is the suggestions. Once that's done, I would think it would delete the ones that say "until space needed" before the ones that say "Keep until I delete". Once the former is gone, I assume it starts attacking the latter. But within those two categories, what order does it use?

KUID means KUID, no ifs, ands, or buts. What you saw was that it did not allow you to schedule more things because it knew that it would have no space to put them. As far as within space needed, I think once all of them are showing the yellow (!) I *think* it's just in order of when the 'save until date' is, but I'm not sure - I never let myself get that far behind the TiVo because I know I'd have to spend a whole weekend trying to get up to date.

As far as within space needed, I think once all of them are showing the yellow (!) I *think* it's just in order of when the 'save until date' is, but I'm not sure

IIRC the tivo actually deletes the oldest expired show, not the show that has been expired the longest. Normally this is the same show, but if you have extended the save until date on some shows that might not be the case.

Tell her you got an error message that the Tivo is very tired of holding all that information and that it will begin to drop some of it soon if it's not watched or deleted. The message also warned that save until I delete is very stressful for the Tivo and causes wierd problems. It then said that no guide data will be downloaded because it's too full. It's filled up it's long term memory and now everything is being stored in short term memory. It's a very critical situation!